Have you ever watched one of those police-videos shows? Usually, whatever the person the police are chasing did to have the cops going after them, the smartest thing they can do, at any given moment of the chase, is to pull over and surrender. Their chances of getting away are minimal at best, especially if the chase happens to be one that gets picked up by the local news. The longer they run, the more cops chase them and the more opportunity they have to make things worse for themselves by racking up additional charges.
However, every so often, you'll see a video where the consequences facing the fugitive in question are so severe that it becomes a case where they feel they have nothing left to lose, or at least where the narrator interprets it as such. They have such a sentence facing them that, in a coldly pragmatic sense, for them pulling over would be pointless. These are the ones who tend to face either life or effective life without parole, the death penalty, or in a few rare cases, are destined to die where they stand facing off against the cops. These people tend to yield the most harrowing and spectacular chases of all. The last category- the fugitives destined to go down in a blaze of glory- is almost a first-ballot Hall of Fame of the police-video set: the North Hollywood shootout, the Killdozer, the San Diego tank rampage.
It's troubling, but at the same time, it is a natural human response. When someone feels as though they have nothing to lose, inhibitions, reservations, and anything else holding that person back all fall away. All that is possible becomes a potential course of action, and all thought to be impossible is considered anyway. After all, might as well. The feeling is responsible for some of humanity's most dramatic and heroic moments, but it can also lead to some of its worst.
Over the weekend, one of these moments happened in Columbia, South Carolina. Kenneth Myers was found dead on Saturday after having killed his wife, her twin sister and mother, and his ex-girlfriend before turning the gun on himself. His relationship with the ex-girlfriend slowly deteriorated over seven years, and his marriage was doing the same. The economy was also negatively affecting his business in auto glass repair.
Michael Rushton of the Wagoner Police Department noted of Myers, "At one point in time, whenever he tried to evade us, I saw his face for a brief second, and you could tell he was a different person," Rushton said. "He had gotten to the point where he thought he had nothing else to lose. He figured he was done for, I'm assuming, and I really hate that he had done what he had done."
Which leads us to a bit of a problem. Any effective punishment or treatment, or threat of same, depends on the target believing that things will be measurably better if they cease their undesirable behavior. If that does not exist, they won't stop. And if they reach a point where they are convinced that they're screwed no matter what they do, that allows them to let loose. Instead of one dead body, there are five. Instead of a surrender, there is a shootout.
At the same time, though, to a degree, properly calibrating a punishment so that this feeling is not triggered is outrageously difficult, and may not even be possible. Again, usually a punishment's effectiveness depends at least partly, and sometimes completely, on the offender's perception of it. If the offender doesn't think it's worth restraining themselves over, they won't. And if they think they have nothing to lose-
think being the keyword- well, we've just gone over that.
Whether or not there is even a minorly feasible way to prevent the nothing-to-lose sentiment from taking hold in the mind of a suspect, the failure of one to be identified results in tragedy that need not happen every time it does. The consequences of not having a preventative procedure are such that at least some brainstorming should be devoted towards trying to make one.
Maybe a fix is possible. Maybe it's just one of those things that happens. But whether or not there's an answer to the problem, it's at least worth asking the question.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Four For Fighting
It's the Fourth of July. Independence Day in the United States.
I suppose some of you are expecting me to make some high-minded speech where I once again decry the toxic political discourse in this country. Which, don't get me wrong, is completely unacceptable for a nation that has any right to call itself a moral compass or global authority. You're probably looking at me, on this day, to reach back to the Founding Fathers and talk about what they'd think of us were they to see how we lay into each other on this most patriotic of days.
I can do that for you. But you may not like what you hear.
First, let's cover the revolution itself. The revolution was not a united group of colonists against the British; let's make that clear. Some of the colonists were loyal to the British crown. What's not as cut-and-dried is the exact split of loyalists to patriots, and how many people were undecided, as it were. The long-standing conventional wisdom on the topic was that it was an even three-way split. More recently, though, the split's been refigured more like 15-20% loyalist, 40-45% patriot or patriot-sympathetic, and the rest neutral. A little more in favor of the patriots than before.
And, of course, as things progressed, the patriots pressed their numbers. Much of the war revolved around trying to win the hearts and minds of the undecideds. This was accomplished partially through persuasive argument and, eventually, partially through forcing the loyalists to shut up via lootings, beatings, harassment and various other indignities. After the war, some of the loyalists got out of Dodge. Just like Liberia was "founded" by Americans leaving America, Sierra Leone was "founded" by black loyalists who had fled to Nova Scotia and discovered that life wasn't much fun there either.
Most of the loyalists, however, stayed put. However, they continued to harbor loyalist feelings for the remainder of their days. Sentiments you went to war over die hard, win or lose. In the end, when the first political parties in America were formed, one, the Federalist Party, took a decidedly more pro-British tack. It's not hard to figure out where the loyalists went.
This would come into play over the Fourth of July.
If you happened to be perusing the Daily Beast last year, you'll have noticed Sean Wilentz talk about exactly what the Founding Fathers were up to on Independence Day: sniping at each other. The two parties of the time, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, wouldn't even hold events with each other.
The Democratic-Republicans would spend the day attacking the Federalists over the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or officials within. In practice, the law basically made it illegal to criticize then-President John Adams, especially since the law had an expiration date that just so happened to also be Adams' last day in office.
In turn, the Federalists spent the day attacking Thomas Jefferson and downplaying his role in writing the Declaration of Independence. A few scattered loyalists were still around, and they had huddled with the Federalists. One, Timothy Pickering, called the Declaration "high-wrought Philippic against Great Britain and her King.”
Albert B. Southwick of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette recalls here how things went down in Worcester in 1808. The ill will harbored by each party in that story was repeated nationwide; the book Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic by Len Travers tells about how that same year in Philadelphia, Federalists aimed to "excite hostility even to blood," with both parties threatening each other, each attempting to goad the other into throwing the first punch so they would have an excuse to fight.
So what happened to calm things down on the Fourth? Simple: the Federalists died off as a party. When Jefferson became the third President in the 1800 election, the Federalists found themselves on their back heel. Accustomed to an upper-class lifestyle, they found themselves out of touch. And when Jefferson's handpicked successor, James Madison, was elected to two terms of his own, they found themselves near death. (Opposing the War of 1812 didn't help their case any.) By the time James Monroe came along in 1816, they barely had enough power left to even field a candidate to oppose him. They would informally send twice-defeated vice-presidential candidate Rufus King to oppose Monroe, and when that failed, by 1820, the Federalists were left fielding only a candidate for Vice President, Richard Stockton, without a Presidential candidate for him to run with. It was the last gasp before the party dissolved entirely. And without two parties that could attack each other on the Fourth, and without a party sympathetic to the British, Independence Day became a day of unified patriotism.
The immediate post-Federalist era was known as the Era of Good Feelings. It wasn't entirely good feelings; the issues that would later result in the Civil War were beginning to take root. But for one day a year, at least, it was an improvement.
I suppose some of you are expecting me to make some high-minded speech where I once again decry the toxic political discourse in this country. Which, don't get me wrong, is completely unacceptable for a nation that has any right to call itself a moral compass or global authority. You're probably looking at me, on this day, to reach back to the Founding Fathers and talk about what they'd think of us were they to see how we lay into each other on this most patriotic of days.
I can do that for you. But you may not like what you hear.
First, let's cover the revolution itself. The revolution was not a united group of colonists against the British; let's make that clear. Some of the colonists were loyal to the British crown. What's not as cut-and-dried is the exact split of loyalists to patriots, and how many people were undecided, as it were. The long-standing conventional wisdom on the topic was that it was an even three-way split. More recently, though, the split's been refigured more like 15-20% loyalist, 40-45% patriot or patriot-sympathetic, and the rest neutral. A little more in favor of the patriots than before.
And, of course, as things progressed, the patriots pressed their numbers. Much of the war revolved around trying to win the hearts and minds of the undecideds. This was accomplished partially through persuasive argument and, eventually, partially through forcing the loyalists to shut up via lootings, beatings, harassment and various other indignities. After the war, some of the loyalists got out of Dodge. Just like Liberia was "founded" by Americans leaving America, Sierra Leone was "founded" by black loyalists who had fled to Nova Scotia and discovered that life wasn't much fun there either.
Most of the loyalists, however, stayed put. However, they continued to harbor loyalist feelings for the remainder of their days. Sentiments you went to war over die hard, win or lose. In the end, when the first political parties in America were formed, one, the Federalist Party, took a decidedly more pro-British tack. It's not hard to figure out where the loyalists went.
This would come into play over the Fourth of July.
If you happened to be perusing the Daily Beast last year, you'll have noticed Sean Wilentz talk about exactly what the Founding Fathers were up to on Independence Day: sniping at each other. The two parties of the time, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, wouldn't even hold events with each other.
The Democratic-Republicans would spend the day attacking the Federalists over the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or officials within. In practice, the law basically made it illegal to criticize then-President John Adams, especially since the law had an expiration date that just so happened to also be Adams' last day in office.
In turn, the Federalists spent the day attacking Thomas Jefferson and downplaying his role in writing the Declaration of Independence. A few scattered loyalists were still around, and they had huddled with the Federalists. One, Timothy Pickering, called the Declaration "high-wrought Philippic against Great Britain and her King.”
Albert B. Southwick of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette recalls here how things went down in Worcester in 1808. The ill will harbored by each party in that story was repeated nationwide; the book Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic by Len Travers tells about how that same year in Philadelphia, Federalists aimed to "excite hostility even to blood," with both parties threatening each other, each attempting to goad the other into throwing the first punch so they would have an excuse to fight.
So what happened to calm things down on the Fourth? Simple: the Federalists died off as a party. When Jefferson became the third President in the 1800 election, the Federalists found themselves on their back heel. Accustomed to an upper-class lifestyle, they found themselves out of touch. And when Jefferson's handpicked successor, James Madison, was elected to two terms of his own, they found themselves near death. (Opposing the War of 1812 didn't help their case any.) By the time James Monroe came along in 1816, they barely had enough power left to even field a candidate to oppose him. They would informally send twice-defeated vice-presidential candidate Rufus King to oppose Monroe, and when that failed, by 1820, the Federalists were left fielding only a candidate for Vice President, Richard Stockton, without a Presidential candidate for him to run with. It was the last gasp before the party dissolved entirely. And without two parties that could attack each other on the Fourth, and without a party sympathetic to the British, Independence Day became a day of unified patriotism.
The immediate post-Federalist era was known as the Era of Good Feelings. It wasn't entirely good feelings; the issues that would later result in the Civil War were beginning to take root. But for one day a year, at least, it was an improvement.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Random News Generator- Germany
First off, yes, there's the Women's World Cup going on today. Earlier today North Korea lost 1-0 to Sweden, sending the Swedes through to the quarterfinals and eliminating the North Koreans with one game remaining for each in the group stage. The United States plays Colombia shortly; the Americans can advance with a win while a loss will eliminate Colombia.
Also confirmed to advance are France, Japan and host Germany. Confirmed as eliminated are Nigeria, Canada and New Zealand.
However, there is something else notable in Germany today: the formal end of their draft, with the final draftees being released from service on Thursday. West Germany instituted a draft in 1957, with the aim of tying the military more closely to society in general so that it wouldn't get any new bright ideas about world domination. Sometimes the period of required service was 18 months; in later years it was whittled down to six, and eventually, the memory and shame of Hitler and World War 2 just turned the Germans largely off of war entirely. The result has been a shrinking military, fewer campaigns abroad, and the end of the draft that we are now seeing.
Although the recession had something to do with it too.
Swapping to a volunteer force, though, may start causing another cultural echo chamber, as a disproportionally high number of volunteers come from the former East Germany. Lack of opportunity in civilian life leads some to enlist, just like in any other country with a volunteer army, and East Germany never really caught up with West Germany economically after the Cold War.
The move to abolish the draft has drawn opposition from, of all things, the nation's hospitals. With any draft, there will be conscientious objectors. Conscientious objectors are placed somewhere on the homefront where they can still be of use- for instance, a hospital. Or a kindergarten. Or an assisted-living facility. Those places, in turn, receive relatively cheap labor. That is the core of the objection: no objectors means no cheap labor, and no cheap labor means payroll costs go up. In addition, the objectors tend to be given the more basic, menial tasks, tasks that would then have to be reassigned to their regular employees, employees that have gotten used to concentrating on more critical tasks. Productivity, thus, would go down as well.
Jobs, however, would not be much of an issue. Germany is currently riding 24 consecutive months of falling unemployment, with the 7.0% unemployment rate the best Germany has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. If someone wants or needs that kind of work, there it is.
Also confirmed to advance are France, Japan and host Germany. Confirmed as eliminated are Nigeria, Canada and New Zealand.
However, there is something else notable in Germany today: the formal end of their draft, with the final draftees being released from service on Thursday. West Germany instituted a draft in 1957, with the aim of tying the military more closely to society in general so that it wouldn't get any new bright ideas about world domination. Sometimes the period of required service was 18 months; in later years it was whittled down to six, and eventually, the memory and shame of Hitler and World War 2 just turned the Germans largely off of war entirely. The result has been a shrinking military, fewer campaigns abroad, and the end of the draft that we are now seeing.
Although the recession had something to do with it too.
Swapping to a volunteer force, though, may start causing another cultural echo chamber, as a disproportionally high number of volunteers come from the former East Germany. Lack of opportunity in civilian life leads some to enlist, just like in any other country with a volunteer army, and East Germany never really caught up with West Germany economically after the Cold War.
The move to abolish the draft has drawn opposition from, of all things, the nation's hospitals. With any draft, there will be conscientious objectors. Conscientious objectors are placed somewhere on the homefront where they can still be of use- for instance, a hospital. Or a kindergarten. Or an assisted-living facility. Those places, in turn, receive relatively cheap labor. That is the core of the objection: no objectors means no cheap labor, and no cheap labor means payroll costs go up. In addition, the objectors tend to be given the more basic, menial tasks, tasks that would then have to be reassigned to their regular employees, employees that have gotten used to concentrating on more critical tasks. Productivity, thus, would go down as well.
Jobs, however, would not be much of an issue. Germany is currently riding 24 consecutive months of falling unemployment, with the 7.0% unemployment rate the best Germany has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. If someone wants or needs that kind of work, there it is.
Friday, July 1, 2011
The First Professional Wrestler
Let's begin with a question. Without looking it up, who was the first person we would recognize today as a professional wrestler?
"Hulk Hogan?"
...hoo boy. Either you have never paid any attention to professional wrestling, or you are incredibly ignorant of what you've been watching. Even in the era since Hulk arrived on the scene, took the spotlight from the likes of Bruno Sammartino, and repeatedly took wrestling by storm, names from long before had been placed on screen and even in the ring, like Bob Backlund (who debuted in 1973), Gorilla Monsoon (who debuted in 1959), and Mae Young (who debuted in 1939.) Young to this day still recalls her having been wrestling in Memphis the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing.
Hulk Hogan, meanwhile, debuted in 1977.
"You mentioned Bruno Sammartino. What about him? Who's he?"
Sammartino debuted in 1959, same as Monsoon. He holds the all-time record for longest reign as champion of what was then the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation), or for that matter any other pro wrestling world title belt. That reign lasted from 1963- a defeat of "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers"- to 1971- a loss to Ivan Koloff. He left the promotion on poor terms, and has since grown to hate what pro wrestling has become, but since Vince McMahon is the one with the bully pulpit, you don't hear from Sammartino much these days.
"Oh, geez, who's that one guy, the pretty boy. First one with a gimmick."
You mean Gorgeous George?
"Yeah, him! That's the guy."
He debuted in 1932, earlier than anyone we've mentioned so far. He was in fact the first to have a gimmick that really, truly went over with the crowd: the aforementioned pretty-boy image. He dyed his hair blonde, wore perfume and bobby pins, used Pomp and Circumstance as theme music decades before Randy Savage did, had a valet named Jeffries who laid out a red carpet and threw rose petals, the works.
It should go without saying that George cheated and cried like a baby every time he got beat up. The whole act, combined with the earliest days of television, caused people- and by people we are referring to World War 2 veterans who saw George's manhood fairly lacking- to pay top dollar for the privilege of hating him in person. Prior to George, you could get away with being a straight-laced gimmickless grappler. After George, it was all about the showmanship from then on.
But he's not who we're looking for. There were some before him. And there were gimmicks before him as well.
"Well, who, then?"
What must first be made clear is that professional wrestling was borne out of true, non-kayfabe, we-don't-know-the-winner-in-advance wrestling. This type of wrestling, borne out of Lancashire, England, was known as 'catch' wrestling- short for catch-as-catch-can- and one melded slowly into the other. Here's a clip from 1903 of what catch-as-catch-can looks like, unearthed by HBO.
The melding was smooth enough that the question of who should be called the first true pro wrestler can be a slightly maddening thing to answer. However, one place can help out: the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Amsterdam, New York. Unlike WWE's in-house Hall of Fame, which inducts based on who happens to be in good standing with WWE at the time, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame is not affiliated with any one promotion, and thus has a purer interest in chronicling the sport's true history. Even so, the question of who is pro and who is not proves a matter of interpretation. Do you count the first with a gimmick? The first to accept money? The first to wrestle a match whose outcome was decided in advance?
Ultimately, I opted to go with the earliest-debuting wrestler the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame had inducted. This was Martin "Farmer" Burns, who debuted in 1869 and is today known as "The Grandmaster of American Wrestling". Back then, wrestling was the realm of traveling carnivals and take-on-all-comers contests. The latter was a format in which cash was awarded to any man that could throw, defeat, or sometimes merely survive against a featured wrestler. At age 8, Burns claimed one such prize, worth 15 cents, and was on his way.
Burns was born in a log cabin in Cedar County, Iowa. As the nickname suggests, he was raised on a farm. His father died when he was age 11, and to help support the family, Burns went to work. Burns went to a lot of work. He would farm; he would log; he would chop wood. He would also carry his work ethic into the gym, or at least what passed for a gym back then.
The most imposing feature of Burns was his neck, which he built up to a 20 inch diameter after losing a match early in 1886 to a stranglehold applied by Evan "Strangler" Lewis. (For reference, Shaquille O'Neal's neck also measures 20 inches. But while Shaq weighs around 325 pounds, Burns came in at a mere 160.) Once developed, he demonstrated the strength of his neck by having himself hanged.
Yes. With a noose. He did this regularly, often several times a day. For good measure, while he was up there, he would whistle "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
In 1889, Burns made his big break at an event in Chicago. At this event, $25 was offered to anyone that could avoid being thrown for 15 minutes each by Jack Carkeek and, as fate would have it, Evan "Strangler" Lewis.
Carkeek, for one, had heard of Burns, who aside from the loss to Lewis had run roughshod over the Iowa wrestling circuit, and wanted no part of him. Carkeek asked the booker to call the whole thing off as soon as he knew of Burns' intentions, but Burns, who had come into town in the first place to deliver hogs, said he was there for the next ten days, and anytime Carkeek was ready would be fine.
Carkeek's fears turned out to be well-founded. Despite Burns showing up in his farmer's overalls (and picking up his nickname in the process), underneath those overalls was a very strong, very scary man. Carkeek never had a prayer. Instead of throwing Burns, Burns threw him around for the 15 minutes. Lewis was next, and he knew Burns from before. But Burns had built his neck up because of Lewis, and this time Lewis had no answer. Burns took the $25, and space in the Chicago papers.
Aside from his conditioning, Burns benefited from having a well-rounded wrestling style. In those days, the rules were far from uniform, with the legality of various moves altering from match to match. One-dimensional wrestlers were in big trouble if they found themselves in a match where their signature move was banned. Burns had many moves to fall back on- the full-nelson, the half-nelson, the chicken wing, the double wrist lock, the hammerlock, several kinds of toe holds.
Most importantly to wrestling, Burns popularized the concept of the pinfall. In the days of catch wrestling, it was more common to win a match by throwing your opponent to the ground, with pinfalls only coming into play if nobody had made a throw after a certain timeframe. (Matches sometimes had a time limit. Sometimes they didn't. When they didn't, bouts could potentially last for hours. Nine-hour fights were not unheard of.) Burns milked the art of the pinfall for all it was worth. If it was too early in the match for a pin to decide things, Burns didn't care. He would pin just to set up one of his holds. Nobody else was giving the pin nearly as much attention to such great effect. It was like Notre Dame popularizing the forward pass in football.
Over the years, Burns would claim to have wrestled thousands of matches, only losing six or seven. The exact numbers seem as academic as any other win-loss record in the sport that isn't the Undertaker's Wrestlemania winning streak. The point is made.
By 1893, Burns had advanced to the role of teacher. He would never really stop wrestling, but now he was training as well. In that year, he opened his first gym in Rock Island, Illinois; later, he would open another in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1914, he published a mail-order, 12-month wrestling course called 'Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture', which, true to Burns' nature, emphasized hard work, holds, and devoted one lesson to building up the neck.
One of Burns' many, many students was fellow Iowan Frank Gotch, another Hall of Famer who claimed a world title in 1908, and whom some consider to be the greatest wrestler of the era, if not of all time. In fact, another of Burns' lessons concerned a move called the "Gotch Toe Hold". Burns acted as coach for Iowa's first state wrestling champion, Cedar Rapids Washington, in 1921. To this day, the hotbed of collegiate wrestling continues to be the Plains states, ranging from North Dakota and Minnesota to Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Iowa remains the capital of wrestling in America, chiefly due to Burns' lessons and Gotch's testimonial performances.
Burns lived long enough to see Gorgeous George begin his career, but not long enough to see the persona debut; the man behind it, George Wagner, would not adopt the Gorgeous George persona until 1941, and Burns died in 1937. So it's possible that Burns died not quite realizing the direction his sport would ultimately take.
Meanwhile, while all that is seen today in the sport can ultimately trace back to the roots Burns had laid, today's competitors and especially fans are in all likelihood not aware of just who started them down the path they now tread.
But while neither end of professional wrestling's timeline may be able to quite see the other, they in at least one sense remain kindred spirits.
After all, if someone came out and hanged himself every week as part of his entrance, you'd notice.
"Hulk Hogan?"
...hoo boy. Either you have never paid any attention to professional wrestling, or you are incredibly ignorant of what you've been watching. Even in the era since Hulk arrived on the scene, took the spotlight from the likes of Bruno Sammartino, and repeatedly took wrestling by storm, names from long before had been placed on screen and even in the ring, like Bob Backlund (who debuted in 1973), Gorilla Monsoon (who debuted in 1959), and Mae Young (who debuted in 1939.) Young to this day still recalls her having been wrestling in Memphis the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing.
Hulk Hogan, meanwhile, debuted in 1977.
"You mentioned Bruno Sammartino. What about him? Who's he?"
Sammartino debuted in 1959, same as Monsoon. He holds the all-time record for longest reign as champion of what was then the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation), or for that matter any other pro wrestling world title belt. That reign lasted from 1963- a defeat of "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers"- to 1971- a loss to Ivan Koloff. He left the promotion on poor terms, and has since grown to hate what pro wrestling has become, but since Vince McMahon is the one with the bully pulpit, you don't hear from Sammartino much these days.
"Oh, geez, who's that one guy, the pretty boy. First one with a gimmick."
You mean Gorgeous George?
"Yeah, him! That's the guy."
He debuted in 1932, earlier than anyone we've mentioned so far. He was in fact the first to have a gimmick that really, truly went over with the crowd: the aforementioned pretty-boy image. He dyed his hair blonde, wore perfume and bobby pins, used Pomp and Circumstance as theme music decades before Randy Savage did, had a valet named Jeffries who laid out a red carpet and threw rose petals, the works.
It should go without saying that George cheated and cried like a baby every time he got beat up. The whole act, combined with the earliest days of television, caused people- and by people we are referring to World War 2 veterans who saw George's manhood fairly lacking- to pay top dollar for the privilege of hating him in person. Prior to George, you could get away with being a straight-laced gimmickless grappler. After George, it was all about the showmanship from then on.
But he's not who we're looking for. There were some before him. And there were gimmicks before him as well.
"Well, who, then?"
What must first be made clear is that professional wrestling was borne out of true, non-kayfabe, we-don't-know-the-winner-in-advance wrestling. This type of wrestling, borne out of Lancashire, England, was known as 'catch' wrestling- short for catch-as-catch-can- and one melded slowly into the other. Here's a clip from 1903 of what catch-as-catch-can looks like, unearthed by HBO.
The melding was smooth enough that the question of who should be called the first true pro wrestler can be a slightly maddening thing to answer. However, one place can help out: the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Amsterdam, New York. Unlike WWE's in-house Hall of Fame, which inducts based on who happens to be in good standing with WWE at the time, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame is not affiliated with any one promotion, and thus has a purer interest in chronicling the sport's true history. Even so, the question of who is pro and who is not proves a matter of interpretation. Do you count the first with a gimmick? The first to accept money? The first to wrestle a match whose outcome was decided in advance?
Ultimately, I opted to go with the earliest-debuting wrestler the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame had inducted. This was Martin "Farmer" Burns, who debuted in 1869 and is today known as "The Grandmaster of American Wrestling". Back then, wrestling was the realm of traveling carnivals and take-on-all-comers contests. The latter was a format in which cash was awarded to any man that could throw, defeat, or sometimes merely survive against a featured wrestler. At age 8, Burns claimed one such prize, worth 15 cents, and was on his way.
Burns was born in a log cabin in Cedar County, Iowa. As the nickname suggests, he was raised on a farm. His father died when he was age 11, and to help support the family, Burns went to work. Burns went to a lot of work. He would farm; he would log; he would chop wood. He would also carry his work ethic into the gym, or at least what passed for a gym back then.
The most imposing feature of Burns was his neck, which he built up to a 20 inch diameter after losing a match early in 1886 to a stranglehold applied by Evan "Strangler" Lewis. (For reference, Shaquille O'Neal's neck also measures 20 inches. But while Shaq weighs around 325 pounds, Burns came in at a mere 160.) Once developed, he demonstrated the strength of his neck by having himself hanged.
Yes. With a noose. He did this regularly, often several times a day. For good measure, while he was up there, he would whistle "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
In 1889, Burns made his big break at an event in Chicago. At this event, $25 was offered to anyone that could avoid being thrown for 15 minutes each by Jack Carkeek and, as fate would have it, Evan "Strangler" Lewis.
Carkeek, for one, had heard of Burns, who aside from the loss to Lewis had run roughshod over the Iowa wrestling circuit, and wanted no part of him. Carkeek asked the booker to call the whole thing off as soon as he knew of Burns' intentions, but Burns, who had come into town in the first place to deliver hogs, said he was there for the next ten days, and anytime Carkeek was ready would be fine.
Carkeek's fears turned out to be well-founded. Despite Burns showing up in his farmer's overalls (and picking up his nickname in the process), underneath those overalls was a very strong, very scary man. Carkeek never had a prayer. Instead of throwing Burns, Burns threw him around for the 15 minutes. Lewis was next, and he knew Burns from before. But Burns had built his neck up because of Lewis, and this time Lewis had no answer. Burns took the $25, and space in the Chicago papers.
Aside from his conditioning, Burns benefited from having a well-rounded wrestling style. In those days, the rules were far from uniform, with the legality of various moves altering from match to match. One-dimensional wrestlers were in big trouble if they found themselves in a match where their signature move was banned. Burns had many moves to fall back on- the full-nelson, the half-nelson, the chicken wing, the double wrist lock, the hammerlock, several kinds of toe holds.
Most importantly to wrestling, Burns popularized the concept of the pinfall. In the days of catch wrestling, it was more common to win a match by throwing your opponent to the ground, with pinfalls only coming into play if nobody had made a throw after a certain timeframe. (Matches sometimes had a time limit. Sometimes they didn't. When they didn't, bouts could potentially last for hours. Nine-hour fights were not unheard of.) Burns milked the art of the pinfall for all it was worth. If it was too early in the match for a pin to decide things, Burns didn't care. He would pin just to set up one of his holds. Nobody else was giving the pin nearly as much attention to such great effect. It was like Notre Dame popularizing the forward pass in football.
Over the years, Burns would claim to have wrestled thousands of matches, only losing six or seven. The exact numbers seem as academic as any other win-loss record in the sport that isn't the Undertaker's Wrestlemania winning streak. The point is made.
By 1893, Burns had advanced to the role of teacher. He would never really stop wrestling, but now he was training as well. In that year, he opened his first gym in Rock Island, Illinois; later, he would open another in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1914, he published a mail-order, 12-month wrestling course called 'Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture', which, true to Burns' nature, emphasized hard work, holds, and devoted one lesson to building up the neck.
One of Burns' many, many students was fellow Iowan Frank Gotch, another Hall of Famer who claimed a world title in 1908, and whom some consider to be the greatest wrestler of the era, if not of all time. In fact, another of Burns' lessons concerned a move called the "Gotch Toe Hold". Burns acted as coach for Iowa's first state wrestling champion, Cedar Rapids Washington, in 1921. To this day, the hotbed of collegiate wrestling continues to be the Plains states, ranging from North Dakota and Minnesota to Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Iowa remains the capital of wrestling in America, chiefly due to Burns' lessons and Gotch's testimonial performances.
Burns lived long enough to see Gorgeous George begin his career, but not long enough to see the persona debut; the man behind it, George Wagner, would not adopt the Gorgeous George persona until 1941, and Burns died in 1937. So it's possible that Burns died not quite realizing the direction his sport would ultimately take.
Meanwhile, while all that is seen today in the sport can ultimately trace back to the roots Burns had laid, today's competitors and especially fans are in all likelihood not aware of just who started them down the path they now tread.
But while neither end of professional wrestling's timeline may be able to quite see the other, they in at least one sense remain kindred spirits.
After all, if someone came out and hanged himself every week as part of his entrance, you'd notice.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Who Do You Trust?
(Edited to add additional names.)
One of the most important measures by which we judge our politicians is honesty. At the risk of being Captain Obvious, one would prefer that their elected officials not lie to them. But yet, when it actually comes time to vote, honesty never actually seems to play a part in the decision. No matter how untrustworthy a candidate seems to be, no matter how many years we spend screaming about the broken campaign promises of those who have come before, we seem to judge the new candidates, on some level, by what they have promised, disregarding the possibility that these promises may be lies. We almost never account for the possibility that the person we vote for might have something else up their sleeve-- although, given how things have gone in Wisconsin this year with Scott Walker, maybe that will change a bit.
We do have a way to measure one candidate's honesty against another. At Politifact, they keep a record of the history of every person and organization whose statements they rate. We'll be using those histories today, as well at the ratings each statement has received. You know the ratings by now: True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants On Fire. We're going to assign each rating a point value, as follows:
True- 5 points
Mostly True- 3 points
Half True- 2 points
Barely True- 1 point
False- 0 points
Pants On Fire- -1 point
This point system is designed to give a little extra bonus for having all your lines crossed and I's dotted, with the jump from 3 to 5 points from a Mostly True to a full True. Neither False nor Pants on Fire are awarded any points- getting things totally wrong should not be rewarded- and if you've been given a Pants on Fire, the inclination is that you've made people measurably dumber for having listened to you. That is going to be penalized in a way for which you'd be better off never having opened your mouth.
Now, Politifact has issued some questionable ratings. A little bit of salt is to be taken along with the ratings. However, it's still the best we've got.
What we're going to do here is take all the Republican primary candidates for President, even the ones who have dropped out, and others who have been speculated into the mix, and measure their average rating per statement. We will also measure President Obama. The raw point total won't mean anything, as that is profoundly dependent on how often they are examined. (It will, however, be supplied to help show the math- total points divided by total ratings equals average points per rating, or PPR.)
To help combat small sample sizes, like a baseball batting title, we're going to ask for a minimum number of five "at-bats" to qualify for a PPR. We'll include the non-qualifying candidates, but they will be given separately, without a PPR.
A score will show up with the ratings, in descending order from True to Pants On Fire, shown in the format (0/1/0/2/3/0). This sample chart signifies one Mostly True, two Barely Trues, and three Falses. Followed will be the total points, and then PPR- in this case, 0.833.
As a control, the score for "chain e-mails" will also be given, as they are pretty much Politifact's resident butt monkey; the single least-reliable source Politifact regularly checks. Also included will be a variety of other notable people with at least 10 "at-bats".
Consider a PPR of 2.5 to be great, 2.0 to be good, 1.5 to be marginal, 1.0 to be bad, and anything below 1.0 to be awful.
Sound good?
First, we'll get the non-qualifying candidates out of the way...
Haley Barbour (0/0/0/1/0/0)
Jeb Bush (1/2/0/1/0/0)
Chris Christie (0/1/1/1/1/0)
Mitch Daniels (0/0/0/0/2/0)
Jon Huntsman Jr. (1/0/0/0/0/0)
Gary Johnson (0/1/0/0/0/0)
Fred Karger (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Thad McCotter (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Roy Moore (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Buddy Roemer (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Now that that's done, we'll introduce first Obama, the chain e-mails and the other notables, listed from highest PPR to lowest. A high PPR is, obviously, good. The higher the PPR, the more honest and truthful you are as scored by Politifact.
Dennis Kucinich (8/3/4/1/2/0) 18 at-bats, 58 points, 3.222 PPR
George Will (7/2/3/4/0/0) 16 at-bats, 51 points, 3.188 PPR
Hillary Clinton (32/8/22/15/8/2) 87 at-bats, 241 points, 2.770 PPR
Bob McDonnell (3/3/3/3/0/0) 12 at-bats, 33 points, 2.750 PPR
David Axelrod (2/3/4/2/0/0) 11 at-bats, 29 points, 2.636 PPR
Marco Rubio (8/7/5/4/4/1) 29 at-bats, 74 points, 2.552 PPR
Barack Obama (75/67/71/39/49/4) 305 at-bats, 753 points, 2.469 PPR
Charlie Crist (11/7/7/6/6/2) 39 at-bats, 94 points, 2.410 PPR
Joe Biden (10/9/10/8/5/3) 45 at-bats, 102 points, 2.267 PPR
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (2/3/3/2/2/0) 12 at-bats, 27 points, 2.250 PPR
Jon Kyl (1/3/4/0/2/0) 10 at-bats, 22 points, 2.200 PPR
John Boehner (14/3/4/6/14/1) 42 at-bats, 92 points, 2.190 PPR
Michael Moore (2/4/0/2/3/0) 11 at-bats, 24 points, 2.182 PPR
Rick Scott (8/12/9/5/7/3) 44 at-bats, 96 points, 2.182 PPR
Mitch McConnell (2/2/2/1/3/0) 10 at-bats, 21 points, 2.100 PPR
John McCain (34/31/29/29/38/8) 169 at-bats, 342 points, 2.024 PPR
Harry Reid (2/1/3/2/3/0) 11 at-bats, 21 points, 1.909 PPR
John Kasich (5/4/7/5/6/0) 27 at-bats, 51 points, 1.889 PPR
Rob Portman (2/3/3/2/3/1) 14 at-bats, 26 points, 1.857 PPR
Eric Cantor (4/1/3/2/4/2) 16 at-bats, 29 points, 1.813 PPR
Rachel Maddow (1/3/3/1/4/0) 12 at-bats, 21 points, 1.750 PPR
Scott Walker (5/3/3/6/10/1) 28 at-bats, 45 points, 1.607 PPR
Nancy Pelosi (1/2/7/2/3/2) 17 at-bats, 25 points, 1.471 PPR
Glenn Beck (2/1/5/4/6/5) 23 at-bats, 22 points, 0.957 PPR
Ron Johnson (0/1/1/4/4/0) 10 at-bats, 9 points, 0.900 PPR
Chain e-mails (4/5/6/6/28/49) 98 at-bats, 4 points, 0.041 PPR
The one thing Kucinich will ever win against that field. George Will comes in second place and is the only other person here to crest the 3.0 mark.
And now the Republican candidates, again from best PPR to worst.
Ron Paul (4/5/2/1/1/1) 14 at-bats, 39 points, 2.786 PPR
Mitt Romney (17/7/10/5/9/4) 52 at-bats, 127 points, 2.442 PPR
Rudy Giuliani (7/6/9/7/5/2) 36 at-bats, 76 points, 2.111 PPR
Mike Huckabee (7/2/6/6/4/2) 27 at-bats, 57 points, 2.111 PPR
Tim Pawlenty (1/4/3/2/1/1) 12 at-bats, 24 points, 2.000 PPR
Newt Gingrich (3/3/4/1/3/2) 16 at-bats, 31 points, 1.938 PPR
Paul Ryan (1/1/2/3/0/1) 8 at-bats, 14 points, 1.750 PPR
Sarah Palin (10/6/7/9/13/5) 50 at-bats, 86 points, 1.720 PPR
Mike Pence (3/0/2/3/5/0) 13 at-bats, 22 points, 1.692 PPR
Rick Perry (10/6/19/9/13/7) 64 at-bats, 108 points, 1.688 PPR
Jim DeMint (2/0/0/1/2/1) 6 at-bats, 10 points, 1.667 PPR
Herman Cain (0/2/2/1/3/2) 10 at-bats, 9 points, 0.900 PPR
Donald Trump (0/1/2/0/4/3) 10 at-bats, 4 points, 0.400 PPR
Michelle Bachmann (1/1/2/5/11/7) 27 at-bats, 10 points, 0.370 PPR
Rick Santorum (0/0/1/0/3/1) 5 at-bats, 1 point, 0.200 PPR
Ron Paul wins honors in this field, beating everybody overall but Kucinich and Will. Cain, Trump, Bachmann and Santorum, meanwhile, come in below 1.0, beating nobody but the chain e-mails and each other. (Though Cain can say he ties Ron Johnson.)
Everybody's PPR will flesh out more as the campaign process continues and they get more at-bats. However, for now, it seems a fair starting point.
One of the most important measures by which we judge our politicians is honesty. At the risk of being Captain Obvious, one would prefer that their elected officials not lie to them. But yet, when it actually comes time to vote, honesty never actually seems to play a part in the decision. No matter how untrustworthy a candidate seems to be, no matter how many years we spend screaming about the broken campaign promises of those who have come before, we seem to judge the new candidates, on some level, by what they have promised, disregarding the possibility that these promises may be lies. We almost never account for the possibility that the person we vote for might have something else up their sleeve-- although, given how things have gone in Wisconsin this year with Scott Walker, maybe that will change a bit.
We do have a way to measure one candidate's honesty against another. At Politifact, they keep a record of the history of every person and organization whose statements they rate. We'll be using those histories today, as well at the ratings each statement has received. You know the ratings by now: True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants On Fire. We're going to assign each rating a point value, as follows:
True- 5 points
Mostly True- 3 points
Half True- 2 points
Barely True- 1 point
False- 0 points
Pants On Fire- -1 point
This point system is designed to give a little extra bonus for having all your lines crossed and I's dotted, with the jump from 3 to 5 points from a Mostly True to a full True. Neither False nor Pants on Fire are awarded any points- getting things totally wrong should not be rewarded- and if you've been given a Pants on Fire, the inclination is that you've made people measurably dumber for having listened to you. That is going to be penalized in a way for which you'd be better off never having opened your mouth.
Now, Politifact has issued some questionable ratings. A little bit of salt is to be taken along with the ratings. However, it's still the best we've got.
What we're going to do here is take all the Republican primary candidates for President, even the ones who have dropped out, and others who have been speculated into the mix, and measure their average rating per statement. We will also measure President Obama. The raw point total won't mean anything, as that is profoundly dependent on how often they are examined. (It will, however, be supplied to help show the math- total points divided by total ratings equals average points per rating, or PPR.)
To help combat small sample sizes, like a baseball batting title, we're going to ask for a minimum number of five "at-bats" to qualify for a PPR. We'll include the non-qualifying candidates, but they will be given separately, without a PPR.
A score will show up with the ratings, in descending order from True to Pants On Fire, shown in the format (0/1/0/2/3/0). This sample chart signifies one Mostly True, two Barely Trues, and three Falses. Followed will be the total points, and then PPR- in this case, 0.833.
As a control, the score for "chain e-mails" will also be given, as they are pretty much Politifact's resident butt monkey; the single least-reliable source Politifact regularly checks. Also included will be a variety of other notable people with at least 10 "at-bats".
Consider a PPR of 2.5 to be great, 2.0 to be good, 1.5 to be marginal, 1.0 to be bad, and anything below 1.0 to be awful.
Sound good?
First, we'll get the non-qualifying candidates out of the way...
Haley Barbour (0/0/0/1/0/0)
Jeb Bush (1/2/0/1/0/0)
Chris Christie (0/1/1/1/1/0)
Mitch Daniels (0/0/0/0/2/0)
Jon Huntsman Jr. (1/0/0/0/0/0)
Gary Johnson (0/1/0/0/0/0)
Fred Karger (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Thad McCotter (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Roy Moore (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Buddy Roemer (0/0/0/0/0/0)
Now that that's done, we'll introduce first Obama, the chain e-mails and the other notables, listed from highest PPR to lowest. A high PPR is, obviously, good. The higher the PPR, the more honest and truthful you are as scored by Politifact.
Dennis Kucinich (8/3/4/1/2/0) 18 at-bats, 58 points, 3.222 PPR
George Will (7/2/3/4/0/0) 16 at-bats, 51 points, 3.188 PPR
Hillary Clinton (32/8/22/15/8/2) 87 at-bats, 241 points, 2.770 PPR
Bob McDonnell (3/3/3/3/0/0) 12 at-bats, 33 points, 2.750 PPR
David Axelrod (2/3/4/2/0/0) 11 at-bats, 29 points, 2.636 PPR
Marco Rubio (8/7/5/4/4/1) 29 at-bats, 74 points, 2.552 PPR
Barack Obama (75/67/71/39/49/4) 305 at-bats, 753 points, 2.469 PPR
Charlie Crist (11/7/7/6/6/2) 39 at-bats, 94 points, 2.410 PPR
Joe Biden (10/9/10/8/5/3) 45 at-bats, 102 points, 2.267 PPR
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (2/3/3/2/2/0) 12 at-bats, 27 points, 2.250 PPR
Jon Kyl (1/3/4/0/2/0) 10 at-bats, 22 points, 2.200 PPR
John Boehner (14/3/4/6/14/1) 42 at-bats, 92 points, 2.190 PPR
Michael Moore (2/4/0/2/3/0) 11 at-bats, 24 points, 2.182 PPR
Rick Scott (8/12/9/5/7/3) 44 at-bats, 96 points, 2.182 PPR
Mitch McConnell (2/2/2/1/3/0) 10 at-bats, 21 points, 2.100 PPR
John McCain (34/31/29/29/38/8) 169 at-bats, 342 points, 2.024 PPR
Harry Reid (2/1/3/2/3/0) 11 at-bats, 21 points, 1.909 PPR
John Kasich (5/4/7/5/6/0) 27 at-bats, 51 points, 1.889 PPR
Rob Portman (2/3/3/2/3/1) 14 at-bats, 26 points, 1.857 PPR
Eric Cantor (4/1/3/2/4/2) 16 at-bats, 29 points, 1.813 PPR
Rachel Maddow (1/3/3/1/4/0) 12 at-bats, 21 points, 1.750 PPR
Scott Walker (5/3/3/6/10/1) 28 at-bats, 45 points, 1.607 PPR
Nancy Pelosi (1/2/7/2/3/2) 17 at-bats, 25 points, 1.471 PPR
Glenn Beck (2/1/5/4/6/5) 23 at-bats, 22 points, 0.957 PPR
Ron Johnson (0/1/1/4/4/0) 10 at-bats, 9 points, 0.900 PPR
Chain e-mails (4/5/6/6/28/49) 98 at-bats, 4 points, 0.041 PPR
The one thing Kucinich will ever win against that field. George Will comes in second place and is the only other person here to crest the 3.0 mark.
And now the Republican candidates, again from best PPR to worst.
Ron Paul (4/5/2/1/1/1) 14 at-bats, 39 points, 2.786 PPR
Mitt Romney (17/7/10/5/9/4) 52 at-bats, 127 points, 2.442 PPR
Rudy Giuliani (7/6/9/7/5/2) 36 at-bats, 76 points, 2.111 PPR
Mike Huckabee (7/2/6/6/4/2) 27 at-bats, 57 points, 2.111 PPR
Tim Pawlenty (1/4/3/2/1/1) 12 at-bats, 24 points, 2.000 PPR
Newt Gingrich (3/3/4/1/3/2) 16 at-bats, 31 points, 1.938 PPR
Paul Ryan (1/1/2/3/0/1) 8 at-bats, 14 points, 1.750 PPR
Sarah Palin (10/6/7/9/13/5) 50 at-bats, 86 points, 1.720 PPR
Mike Pence (3/0/2/3/5/0) 13 at-bats, 22 points, 1.692 PPR
Rick Perry (10/6/19/9/13/7) 64 at-bats, 108 points, 1.688 PPR
Jim DeMint (2/0/0/1/2/1) 6 at-bats, 10 points, 1.667 PPR
Herman Cain (0/2/2/1/3/2) 10 at-bats, 9 points, 0.900 PPR
Donald Trump (0/1/2/0/4/3) 10 at-bats, 4 points, 0.400 PPR
Michelle Bachmann (1/1/2/5/11/7) 27 at-bats, 10 points, 0.370 PPR
Rick Santorum (0/0/1/0/3/1) 5 at-bats, 1 point, 0.200 PPR
Ron Paul wins honors in this field, beating everybody overall but Kucinich and Will. Cain, Trump, Bachmann and Santorum, meanwhile, come in below 1.0, beating nobody but the chain e-mails and each other. (Though Cain can say he ties Ron Johnson.)
Everybody's PPR will flesh out more as the campaign process continues and they get more at-bats. However, for now, it seems a fair starting point.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Boom
A bit of a new wrinkle to the Name X In Y Minutes quiz to pass along: the minefield quiz given by Sporcle. Usually in a Name X In Y Minutes quiz, if you type in a wrong answer, all it costs you is a couple seconds. Here, one wrong answer is going to end the quiz.
That said, here's a quiz. Given 20 minutes, name the 100 most populous nations, without naming anything outside the top 100.
I managed 32 countries, including 21 of the top 25, before hitting #116.
That said, here's a quiz. Given 20 minutes, name the 100 most populous nations, without naming anything outside the top 100.
I managed 32 countries, including 21 of the top 25, before hitting #116.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Petty Theft And Highway Robbery
I'm of the philosophy that a diploma doesn't tell the whole story about your education or your level of intelligence. Often, of course, they do, or else they would be functionally worthless. But they're not a be-all-end-all, either. There are people that basically buy their way into the Ivy League and the diploma within, and then pretty much sit back and wait for the world to come to them, waving the diploma around as proof of an education that they only technically have. There are people from decidedly lesser colleges that, head-to-head, will think circles around the aforementioned Ivy Leaguers. Where an underachieving Ivy Leaguer may be so overconfident in their diploma that they fail to think things through and make some astoundingly bad moves, an overachieving small-college grad can realize they have ground to make up, and make that little extra crucial bit of analysis.
And then there's the occasional story of someone who doesn't have a college degree at all but nonetheless is one of the smartest people around.
Now, part of why I bring this up is a bit of a defense of my alma mater. Let's be honest. Madison Area Technical College- or Madison College; I think they changed the name recently- isn't exactly turning away perfect SAT scores left and right. But college is done and gone. MATC can only supply knowledge, and only while I'm enrolled. It's on me to make as much of what I was taught as I possibly can. I won't sit around and wait for people to be attracted to the MATC diploma, because MATC diplomas don't have that kind of drawing power. An MATC grad has a college degree, but they still have to go out and scratch and claw their way through, and put up a ferocious fight just to have the right to take on the Ivy Leaguers.
There are, however, worse degrees to have than that of a tech school.
You could have one from a diploma mill.
In 1989, an application for accreditation by Eastern Missouri Business College came to the International Accrediting Commission in Missouri. The catalog that showed up at the IAC, among other things, listed faculty members such as Arnold Ziffel, Edward J. Haskell, M. Howard, Jerome Howard, and Lawrence Fine; the college seal read "Solum pro Avibus Est Educatio"; the motto was "Latrocina et Raptus", and the marine biology textbook (offered through the mail, along with degrees in genetic engineering and aerospace science) was "The Little Golden Book of Fishes".
For those that didn't catch on already, those faculty members were from Green Acres and the Three Stooges, and the respective translations are "Education is only for the birds" and "Everything from petty theft to highway robbery." This was not a real college. It was a teeny little office in St. Louis, staged with a little bit of fake paperwork, a whole lot of blank papers, and no accounting records or actual classrooms. (Nowadays, the lack of classrooms wouldn't be a dead giveaway, given the proliferation of online colleges, but in 1989, that was a thing worth noting.)
Any accreditor worth their salt would have busted the Fightin' Eastern Missourians in about five seconds. Any accreditor worth their salt would have been tipped off at some point over the course of the catalog, maybe passed it around the office for laughs.
Instead, the head of the IAC, George Reuter, stopped by, wandered around for half an hour and noted how impressed he was. He then went out to have a steak dinner with the head of the college. Although they would pose for a picture of the "official passing of the accreditation check", which amounted to $500.
After later indicating that accreditation would be granted, and selling Eastern Missouri Business a "fancy plaque" for another $25, the faculty of Eastern Missouri Business sprung. They were in fact working for the state attorney general, and quickly got the International Accrediting Commission shut down.
Meet Accrediting Commission International. They popped up in Arkansas shortly thereafter, a state famous for not being Missouri. The fact that the name is the same as "International Accrediting Commission" with the words rearranged is surely coincidental. Them spelling 'commission' with three M's on the topline of your window when you go visit is presumably just a test and not to be read into at all.
And ACI is adamant that you don't read into it, or any other similarities to IAC. In a page entitled 'ACI Answers To Critics', they admit that from "the older organization" (they never state "the older organization's" name outright, although they do say that "most of the stories told about the other organization are only half-truths and outright falsehood"), about 25 colleges were carried over to ACI, as opposed to all of them.
Quackwatch, however, disagrees. They charge that ACI did in fact invite all the colleges under the auspices of ICA to be automatically accredited, which numbers about 250. Go to ACI, though, and you would never know, because they don't list the colleges they've accredited. (Unlike any accreditor worth their salt-- for instance, the Higher Learning Commission, a branch of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which will tell you that it's the one that accredited just about every college of note from West Virginia to Wyoming... including Madison Area Technical College.)
With a fair degree of legwork, though, some guys on the boards of DegreeInfo managed to track down about 100 of the places accredited by ACi. They are mostly Bible colleges. One of the ACI colleges, Wisconsin International University, is quite international indeed, because it has no campus in Wisconsin, or for that matter anywhere else in the United States.
Luckily, there is a simple way to avoid these places. In the United States, there are two institutions that approve accreditors: the Department of Education, and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation. In effect, they accredit the accreditors. If neither of those two places think an accreditor is legit, it stains any college that's approved by that accreditor, to the point where people looking to transfer to a place the DoE or CHEA do approve of may have to start their college education again from scratch.
They don't approve of ACI.
And then there's the occasional story of someone who doesn't have a college degree at all but nonetheless is one of the smartest people around.
Now, part of why I bring this up is a bit of a defense of my alma mater. Let's be honest. Madison Area Technical College- or Madison College; I think they changed the name recently- isn't exactly turning away perfect SAT scores left and right. But college is done and gone. MATC can only supply knowledge, and only while I'm enrolled. It's on me to make as much of what I was taught as I possibly can. I won't sit around and wait for people to be attracted to the MATC diploma, because MATC diplomas don't have that kind of drawing power. An MATC grad has a college degree, but they still have to go out and scratch and claw their way through, and put up a ferocious fight just to have the right to take on the Ivy Leaguers.
There are, however, worse degrees to have than that of a tech school.
You could have one from a diploma mill.
In 1989, an application for accreditation by Eastern Missouri Business College came to the International Accrediting Commission in Missouri. The catalog that showed up at the IAC, among other things, listed faculty members such as Arnold Ziffel, Edward J. Haskell, M. Howard, Jerome Howard, and Lawrence Fine; the college seal read "Solum pro Avibus Est Educatio"; the motto was "Latrocina et Raptus", and the marine biology textbook (offered through the mail, along with degrees in genetic engineering and aerospace science) was "The Little Golden Book of Fishes".
For those that didn't catch on already, those faculty members were from Green Acres and the Three Stooges, and the respective translations are "Education is only for the birds" and "Everything from petty theft to highway robbery." This was not a real college. It was a teeny little office in St. Louis, staged with a little bit of fake paperwork, a whole lot of blank papers, and no accounting records or actual classrooms. (Nowadays, the lack of classrooms wouldn't be a dead giveaway, given the proliferation of online colleges, but in 1989, that was a thing worth noting.)
Any accreditor worth their salt would have busted the Fightin' Eastern Missourians in about five seconds. Any accreditor worth their salt would have been tipped off at some point over the course of the catalog, maybe passed it around the office for laughs.
Instead, the head of the IAC, George Reuter, stopped by, wandered around for half an hour and noted how impressed he was. He then went out to have a steak dinner with the head of the college. Although they would pose for a picture of the "official passing of the accreditation check", which amounted to $500.
After later indicating that accreditation would be granted, and selling Eastern Missouri Business a "fancy plaque" for another $25, the faculty of Eastern Missouri Business sprung. They were in fact working for the state attorney general, and quickly got the International Accrediting Commission shut down.
Meet Accrediting Commission International. They popped up in Arkansas shortly thereafter, a state famous for not being Missouri. The fact that the name is the same as "International Accrediting Commission" with the words rearranged is surely coincidental. Them spelling 'commission' with three M's on the topline of your window when you go visit is presumably just a test and not to be read into at all.
And ACI is adamant that you don't read into it, or any other similarities to IAC. In a page entitled 'ACI Answers To Critics', they admit that from "the older organization" (they never state "the older organization's" name outright, although they do say that "most of the stories told about the other organization are only half-truths and outright falsehood"), about 25 colleges were carried over to ACI, as opposed to all of them.
Quackwatch, however, disagrees. They charge that ACI did in fact invite all the colleges under the auspices of ICA to be automatically accredited, which numbers about 250. Go to ACI, though, and you would never know, because they don't list the colleges they've accredited. (Unlike any accreditor worth their salt-- for instance, the Higher Learning Commission, a branch of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which will tell you that it's the one that accredited just about every college of note from West Virginia to Wyoming... including Madison Area Technical College.)
With a fair degree of legwork, though, some guys on the boards of DegreeInfo managed to track down about 100 of the places accredited by ACi. They are mostly Bible colleges. One of the ACI colleges, Wisconsin International University, is quite international indeed, because it has no campus in Wisconsin, or for that matter anywhere else in the United States.
Luckily, there is a simple way to avoid these places. In the United States, there are two institutions that approve accreditors: the Department of Education, and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation. In effect, they accredit the accreditors. If neither of those two places think an accreditor is legit, it stains any college that's approved by that accreditor, to the point where people looking to transfer to a place the DoE or CHEA do approve of may have to start their college education again from scratch.
They don't approve of ACI.
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